Performance selection [Faust] - Opéra de Lille

Gounod's "Faust" is the second most performed French opera in the world, just behind "Carmen." But should one take this "Faust" literally? Or see, in the midst of the fable, a celebration of pleasures? From the demonic round dance of the Golden Calf led by Satan himself to Marguerite laughing at her own beauty in the mirror, the spectator can savor all excesses, intoxicate themselves with music... without risking damnation. This contradiction does not escape the enlightened analysis of Denis Podalydès. He sees here "an opera fundamentally anti-Puritan in a Puritan world whose religious code it nevertheless embraces, and pretends to observe. There is in this work a double or duplicitous aspect – a structural hypocrisy, typical of the Second Empire. For Gounod is a true Catholic plagued by demons all the more diabolical because he is a fervent Christian." After examining another great figure of theater, Falstaff, in his Verdian dimension, the director tackles here the tragic hero of Goethe, using the spoken dialogues of Jules Barbier that were part of the work at its creation in 1859, to reveal all its ambiguities. A way of celebrating, through Gounod's opera, eternal youth.

Louis Langrée musical direction
Denis Podalydès staging

DURATION: +/- 3h30 including intermission
sung, spoken, and subtitled in French